Daijiworld Media Network - Kolkata

Kolkata, Feb 5: The Congress on Thursday announced that it will contest independently in all 294 Assembly constituencies in West Bengal in the upcoming state Assembly elections scheduled for later this year, ruling out any seat-sharing arrangement with either the CPI(M)-led Left Front or the Trinamool Congress.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the Congress Working Committee held in New Delhi. Leaders from West Bengal who attended the meeting included state Congress president Suvankar Sarkar, former state party chief and five-time Lok Sabha MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, and the party’s lone Lok Sabha MP from the state, Isha Khan Chowdhury.

Following the meeting at the residence of Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge, AICC general secretary and party in-charge for West Bengal, Ghulam Ahmad Mir, formally announced the party’s decision to contest the elections on its own.

Apart from Kharge and Mir, senior Congress leaders present at the meeting included Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, K.C. Venugopal, and other members of the party’s central leadership.

Explaining the rationale behind the move, Mir said past alliance experiments in West Bengal had significantly weakened the party’s grassroots organisation. “Our previous experiences with alliances and seat-sharing arrangements in the state diluted the strength and morale of party workers at the ground level. After detailed discussions with the state leadership, it has been decided that the Congress will contest all 294 Assembly seats independently. Election preparations will now proceed accordingly,” he said.

Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, who had earlier favoured an alliance with the CPI(M)-led Left Front, said the final call had been taken by the party’s central leadership. “The decision to go solo has been taken by the high command, and we will contest the elections independently,” he said.

Political observers believe that a viable seat-sharing arrangement for the 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections was unlikely from the outset. Analysts point out that the Left–Congress understanding in the state since 2016 was largely shaped by the late CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.

“With Yechury’s demise, there is no influential leader within the CPI(M)’s central leadership who can push for an alliance with the Congress. A similar situation exists in the Congress after Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury was sidelined from key decision-making roles,” a Kolkata-based political analyst observed.